Stay
by drakien
Summary: A savior appears at the eleventh hour...with surprises in tow!


Title: Stay

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I own nothing. But there is an overabundance of snow in my area, if anyone would like any.

A/N: Through crazy random happenstance, I'm posting things! Aren't you proud of me? I'M proud of me!

* * *

This was the end.

He tried to tell himself he was ready, that he'd made peace with death, but really, he was just tired. Tired of fighting, tired of failing, but most of all, tired of being out of control. Severus Snape had never been in control of his life, and after over ten years in Azkaban realized that he never would be. He could be in control of his death, however.

He'd been more or less giving his lawyer free rein on what was happening with his case. Thanks to the little weasel, he hadn't been put to death immediately. No, he'd just been rotting away in a cell.

Snape had been taken into custody after the war. It hadn't taken long to realize that anyone who could vouch for his position as a member of the Order was either dead or missing. He'd resigned himself to a traitor's death, almost looking forward to the Dementor's kiss; he would finally be free of all the chains that bound him.

Then the Ministry decided to implement a new legal process. They told the public that the deaths caused by the war, and all the dark spells that had been cast, had upset the magical balance; magic itself needed a chance to heal. So they'd turned to the next best thing, in their minds; Muggle legal system and Muggle death sentences.

He had been continuously appealing for the last ten years, and his time was finally up. He would die in just a few minutes from lethal injection. A part of him was morbidly intrigued by the process, and wanted to know what compounds were held in the bags affixed to the needles in his arm. Another part of him, one that he had been ruthlessly squelching down for most of his life, was gibbering in terror. The rest of him was just…numb. He couldn't bring himself to care all that much.

The time had arrived. He took a shaky breath and closed his eyes, waiting for death to come. At least it would be relatively painless.

One minute passed.

Then two.

Snape wondered what was taking so long. Surely the Muggle poisons were more effective than this. He cracked his eye opened and saw the little man that was to facilitate his demise talking to someone through the Floo. He opened his other eye, wondering what was happening.

After a few minutes, the man stood and walked back over to him. Two guards entered the room, and the man none-to-gently pulled the needles from his arms. Snape was confused as the guards escorted him to a room he hadn't seen before. A nondescript man sat behind a desk with a sheaf of papers in front of him. At the prompting of the guards, Snape sat in the chair in front of the desk. It was uncomfortable.

"Mister Snape," the man said, sounding displeased. "In light of new evidence presented regarding your case, all charges against you have been dropped." He gestured to the guards. "These men with take you to collect your things, then you are free to go."

Snape was still trying to process this bombshell when Frick and Frack pulled him up and started propelling him out the door and down the hall.

The next thing he knew, he was standing outside the gates of Azkaban holding a small bundle of his things, his wand resting on top of the pile. He was pale and unkempt, and blinked owlishly in the sunlight he hadn't seen in a decade. Everything was so _bright_.

He was so preoccupied with trying to get a handle on all of the unfamiliar stimuli that he almost missed the lone figure standing there, waiting for him. Hermione Granger.

Time had been hard on her; she looked nearly as tired and broken as he felt. They didn't get much news from the outside, but from the whispers of other prisoners, he knew that she'd disappeared after the war. Most people thought she'd died, but nothing was ever confirmed; no body had been recovered, unlike those of Potter and Weasley.

"I only recently heard," she said quietly, "or I would have been here sooner. News from around here doesn't reach me often."

"How…"

"I told them the truth, and they had no choice but to believe me," she said simply.

And just like that, Severus was lost. "What do I do?" he wanted to know.

She eyed him critically. "Well, first you're going to come with me and get a shower and shave. Clean clothes and a haircut as well. Then food, and sleep."

Since he lacked the energy to protest her high-handedness, he just nodded.

**oooOOOooo**

The Apparation made him sick, something that hadn't happened since he was a young boy. She held him as he emptied the meager contents of his stomach in a bush in front of a small cottage. When he was done, she walked him inside and took him back to the bathroom. He stood, swaying slightly, as she drew him a bath and removed his ratty clothes.

The numbness had returned, and the rational part of his mind told him that he was probably in a mild state of shock. He sat placidly in the water as she gently scrubbed a decade worth of grime from his malnourished frame. She drained and refilled the tub three times before the water stayed clear. After the bath, she carefully worked the knots from his hair and trimmed it up to his shoulders before turning her attention to his beard. Instead of using a charm, she shaved him by hand. Snape absently noted that it was the first physical contact he'd had in more than ten years that hadn't ended in pain.

Through it all, she didn't make any mention of the wand he grasped tightly in his hand.

When she was finished, she pointed to a pile of clothes she'd set on the counter at some point.

"Those are yours," she said. "With the weight you've lost, they'll probably be a little bit big. I'm going to go put together some soup for supper. Come to the kitchen when you're finished getting dressed."

And with that, Hermione left him alone.

Still in a bit of a daze, he soon found himself seated at a well-used kitchen table covered in a blue and white checkered tablecloth with a bowl of soup in front of him.

The woman across from him seemed to have outgrown her habit of chattering on endlessly, for which he was grateful. After ten years of almost no interaction with people whatsoever, he wouldn't have been able to handle the assault on his ears. Every noise now was uncommonly sharp, from the hum of the icebox to the dripping faucet in the other room. She also didn't seem to expect him to converse, or offer up any explanations for his actions or descriptions of his time in Azkaban.

She _had_ changed.

Though the sun was only just setting, Severus was exhausted. He was clean, fed, and warm for the first time in Merlin knew how long. And he had his wand again, which to him was akin to regaining the use of a limb thought lost forever. And while his curious nature was beginning to emerge from its decade-long hibernation, and he was considering asking her about what she knew of the years since the war, or survivors, he couldn't hold back a yawn.

"We have a Portkey for tomorrow at noon," Hermione informed him as she took up the dishes. "Feel free to sleep in."

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Home," she replied simply.

He looked around, plainly confused. This wasn't her house?

"I rented the house for a few days; I thought you might need some time to… regroup, before we traveled. I've been living in a remote part of the United States since the War, among Muggles, which is why I'd had no news of your incarceration."

"Ah," he managed, not even finding it in him to be angry at the thought of her off living a peaceful and carefree life while he rotted. He'd been angry for the first four years or so, then sullen and resentful for two. Another year had been wasted on despair, before he'd given himself over to the general numbness of resignation. Besides, the shadows in her eyes indicated that her years hadn't been all sunshine and roses, either.

"I'm going to read in the library for a bit," she told him. "I'll see you in the morning."

She left without waiting for his reply, yet another change from the irritating little girl he'd known so long ago. He yawned again, deciding that it would be wise to retire before he fell asleep at the table like a toddler. Pushing to his feet, he spared a single glance in the direction she'd taken before climbing the stairs to his room.

* * *

Three hours, twenty-seven minutes, and fourteen seconds.

That's how much time, according to the small bedside clock, had passed since his head hit the pillow.

It wasn't that he wasn't tired; he was beyond tired. The bed was comfortable, he wasn't too hot or cold…

And yet still, he couldn't make himself close his eyes.

His body must have eventually overrode his mind, however, or so he assumed; one minute he was staring at those accursed numbers, and the next he was sitting bolt-upright in the bed, chest heaving as the remnants of the dream still tormented him. He became aware, eventually, that someone was calling his name.

"…erus! Severus, listen to me, you're alright, it was just a dream. It's Hermione; I came to get you from Azkaban and took you home. Your name was cleared, and you're safe now. Come on, Severus, wake up."

Severus came back to the reality of the present, a nightgown-clad Hermione perched on the edge of his bed stroking his back as she soothed away his nightmare, with a strangled gasp.

If Hermione was surprised when he all but launched himself into her arms with a desperate sob, she hid it well. Instead, she gathered him close and rocked him, making soothing noises to take the edge off his terror.

After a few minutes, she could hear his breathing returning to normal

"Go back to sleep, Severus," she encouraged. "It was just a bad dream; you're safe here."

He trembled again and shook his head. "What if… what if this is all some kind of dream, of a delusion? I'll go to sleep and when I wake up I'll be right back in that putrid cell!"

Some of the tightness around Hermione's eyes and mouth softened at his rare display of vulnerability. Shifting on the bed until her back rested against the headboard, she tugged on Severus until his head settled into her lap.

"Go to sleep, Severus," she instructed, running a tender hand through his hair. "I promise, I'll be here in the morning."

He wasn't sure if it was the feeling of her hands or the gentle rhythm of her breathing, but her presence soon lulled him into the first restful slumber he'd experienced in years.

* * *

She kept her word; Severus was drawn from a surprisingly restful sleep by a soft, repetitive clicking sound.

Blinking several times to clear the sleep from his eyes (and the cobwebs from his mind), he first noticed that he was no longer resting in Hermione's lap, but rather was wrapped around a pillow. Looking around to find the source of the noise, he found her seated in the chair beside the bed working on some sort of knitting project.

"Good morning," Hermione said, pausing her work and looking up at him when she heard him move. "Did you sleep well?"

"Good morning," he replied, frowning as he thought back over the night. "What time is it?"

"Nearly ten," she replied. "We're still in no rush."

Severus was shocked. "I… I can't even remember the last time I slept longer than three or four hours without…"

He trailed off, but Hermione knew what he left unsaid… without a nightmare waking him.

"I'm glad you were able to sleep," she said, tucking away her knitting and standing up. "You look much better today. Now that you're up, I'm going to go put the kettle on for some tea. Feel free to take a shower or whatever you'd like; we've still got plenty of time before we have to leave."

In a move that left him stunned, she leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead before turning and exiting the room.

* * *

The Portkey deposited them rather neatly at the end of a long dirt road.

"I'm sorry about it, but there's some walking to be done," Hermione said. "My house is about a mile back from the road, and I've got the property warded so that no one can Portkey or Apparate in. Residual paranoia from the war, I suppose," she said with a wry smile. "Feel free to set a pace that's comfortable for you, and rest as you need. I somehow doubt you did much walking around over the past decade, so we'll take it slow."

He wanted to snap at her and tell her he didn't need to be coddled, but rationally he knew she was right.

She was good about stopping, at least; some part of her must have realized that his pride wouldn't allow him to voluntarily insist on a break, so every hundred yards or so she'd pause with him to point out some bit of scenery, or a plant she'd found growing locally with medicinal properties, or even some of the local birds whose songs filled his ears with their joyous song.

Eventually, they came around a bend in the road that brought a quaint little house into view.

"There's home," she said. Glancing over at her, Severus could tell she was struggling with something. He waited her out, knowing she'd come out with it eventually.

She did. "Severus, there's something you should know…"

"Mum! You're back! You're back!" a young girl exclaimed as she jumped out of a nearby tree and flew at Hermione.

Hermione merely opened her arms and returned a fierce hug. "I told you I'd only be gone for two days," she said. "Did you behave? Please tell me you didn't turn one of Ms. Bigginns's cats purple again."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Mum, I haven't done anything like that since I was _seven_!" She turned her attention then to the man who had been watching their interactions with a great deal of interest.

"Hello," she greeted easily as she offered her hand. "I'm Sabine Granger. You must be the man Mum went to rescue."

He took her hand, still a little dazed by…everything. "Severus Snape," he replied. "And yes, your…mother…was able to 'rescue me', as you so eloquently put it."

Sabine grinned. "I knew she would. She had that determined look about her when she left."

Snape noticed that Hermione was blushing a bit, but did not comment, as he was being critically examined by a 10-year-old. "You're awfully thin," she remarked. "Pale, too. Are you ill?"

"Sabine," Hermione chastised. "That's not polite."

His eyebrow rose. "No, Miss Granger, I am not ill. I have been in prison."

"Why?" Sabine asked, clearly not all _that_ apologetic, despite Hermione's rebuke.

"I was accused of committing many crimes, among them murdering one of my best friends."

She processed that for a moment. "Did you do it?"

"Sabine Alice Granger!" Hermione hissed, the look of mortification on her face almost bringing a smile to his.

"It's quite all right, Hermione," he said softly. "I did kill him, though I did not wish to. It was right at the beginning of a war, and things were… complicated."

"You must have been a soldier, then," she concluded, sounding sure of herself. Then she frowned. "But when a soldier kills someone, because someone ordered him to, he's not a murderer… he's just doing his job. I don't understand why you would have gone to jail for that."

Snape found himself intrigued by her perspective. "So what, then, is the difference between a soldier and a murderer, Miss Granger," he asked, "if both kill people?"

"Murderers _like_ to kill people," Sabine said firmly. "And Mum wouldn't have gone all the way to England to rescue a murderer."

A smile, a true smile, was teasing the corners of his mouth now. "My orders, in the war, were to pretend to be a member of the opposing faction."

"A spy," Sabine stated, understanding.

He nodded. "Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the battle, anyone who had evidence of my orders was dead." His eyes darted to Hermione. "Or missing."

Sabine's eyes widened, outraged. "What sort of dunderhead wouldn't leave behind evidence to clear the names of his agents?!" she huffed.

Hermione just dropped her head into her hands.

* * *

Hermione and Severus walked the rest of the way to her house alone; Sabine had darted off to climb another tree after her mother instructed her to be home in time for dinner.

"I'm sorry for the interrogation," she offered as they walked. "Sabine hasn't quite mastered 'polite conversation'."

"She seems to be an intelligent and well-mannered child," he countered. "If slightly opinionated."

Hermione smiled. "Thank you. And she's _extraordinarily_ opinionated; devious, too. I have no idea where she gets it from. It's so odd to hear you address her as 'Miss Granger', though."

As much as he hated to think of her with someone else, he had to ask. "Her father was a Muggle? I noted you wore no ring, but…"

She shook her head. "Not a Muggle, and I'm not married…the two of us live here alone." Hermione looked at him, and took a deep breath.

"I had been feeling unwell, leading up to the battle, but I figured that I was either coming down with something, or it was stress." Her lips twisted wryly. "You may recall that those were not the easiest of times. When everything was over, I… I saw their bodies, Ron and Harry's, and we'd left you for dead in the Shack… I just couldn't bear it. I left before anyone saw me."

She snorted derisively. "Some Gryffindor I am; as soon as things get a little bit hard, I turned tail and ran. My great-aunt Sara owned this place; I stayed here when I came to the U.S. She was the one who put a few pieces together and asked me if I might be pregnant, when my 'cold' continued to linger. It was only that one time," she mused as she sent him a meaningful look, then ruefully shook her head. "But I suppose one time is all it takes, isn't it?"

Severus stopped in his tracks, positively gaping at her. She couldn't mean… Surely, it wasn't possible…

But the look in her eyes confirmed it.

Sabine Granger was his daughter.

* * *

"Does she know," he asked hoarsely.

Hermione shrugged slightly. "When she asked, a few years ago, I told her the truth…or what I believed to be the truth at the time. I told her that her father was a brave man who died before his time, fighting in the war she knows I fought in. She never outright asked me her father's name, so in that sense, she doesn't know. When I found out you were still alive, I was too busy trying to _get_ to you before it was too late to explain anything to her."

He asked the question that immediately came to mind next, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Will you tell her?"

"That's up to you, I suppose," she replied. "And you don't have to decide right away. I'm going to make us some lunch when we get up to the house, and we can speak more afterwards."

Severus nodded and followed her to the house.

* * *

Hermione Granger's home was not entirely what he would have expected. Granted, he hadn't spent a great deal of time imagining her living quarters, but part of him expected it to be a bit more… Gryffindor-ish. Instead, the house was tastefully done in warm earth-tones… tans, greens, and blues, with cream accents to keep the rooms feeling light. The abundance of books wasn't a surprise, of course, but her collection of art was unexpected. A bank of windows provided a stunning view of the property, as well.

A remnant of paranoia left over from the war made him question the wisdom of all the glass, but then he caught a glimpse of a protective spell. Looking the house over again with new eyes revealed layer upon layer of cleverly crafted yet well-hidden protective spells.

It seemed he wasn't the only one with residual paranoia.

* * *

Lunch had been a surprisingly pleasant affair, with Hermione and Sabine holding up most of the conversation.

For her part, Sabine was actively engaged in the animated re-telling of the last two days, though Severus couldn't help but feel that she was watching him closely.

Initially, he chalked it up to being the new 'novelty item' in the household, but after nearly an hour of not-so-covert scrutiny, he wondered if it were something else entirely.

Even so, he couldn't help but feel a hint of amusement as the young girl scampered off to play, promising to be back to the house in time for dinner.

* * *

"How did you survive?" Hermione asked. "I feel so awful, just leaving like we did, but as callous as it sounds we were certain you were dead."

"The Aurors found me in the Shrieking Shack, barely alive. They didn't wish to miss the opportunity to make an example of the most reviled man in the Wizarding world, next to the Dark Lord, so I was sent to St. Mungo's. Once they had me stabilized, they carted me off to Azkaban, where I finished convalescing."

"I still can't believe no one knew you were alive. Surely there was a trial, or _something_?"

Snape shook his head. "Traitors were not given the luxury of a trial when they were arrested," he said. "I retained the services of a barrister, who managed to keep me from the Dementor's Kiss, but that was the extent of it."

"What about the rest of the Order? Did no one even question?"

"About four years into my incarceration, it was my understanding that a small contingent of the remaining Order members discovered that I was alive, though I don't know how. The warden seemed to delight in the fact that they'd failed to free me, as they had no evidence that my actions were at Albus's instruction."

Hermione sighed. "I'm sorry it took me as long as it did; I doubt anyone would have thought to Owl me, after the way I just left after the dust settled. As it was, I barely made it in time."

He reached out and covered her hand with his own. "But you did make it, Hermione, and for that I am grateful."

* * *

Severus was in the library that evening, enjoying one of the potions journals in Hermione's collection (he had ten years of research to catch up with, after all), when Sabine found him. Settling into the chair across from him, she looked him over speculatively.

"May I help you with something, Miss Granger?" he asked, setting his journal aside.

She nodded. "I was wondering if I might ask you a question, Sir?"

Severus nodded. "Proceed."

Sabine took a breath, but met his eye squarely. "Are you the reason Mum is sad sometimes?" she asked with all the seriousness a 10-year-old could muster.

He inhaled sharply, somewhat taken aback at her directness. "It's quite likely," he said.

She nodded. "Thank you for being honest." Without any further conversation, Sabine rose from her chair and walked out of the room. She paused at the door, and looked back.

"You know, Mum told me she was only sad sometimes because she was thinking about my Dad."

There was no accusation present, only mild curiosity tempered with her unusual maturity. It was clear to him then that she'd figured out who he was, and she'd trapped him neatly. He almost laughed, if not for the seriousness of their conversation.

"I was sad sometimes when I thought about him, too," she admitted.

"I didn't mean to make either of you sad," he said quietly.

"I know," she replied simply, and left him to sort through his turbulent thoughts alone.

* * *

It was no great surprise that Severus couldn't go to sleep. In the space of 48 hours, he'd gone from being minutes from death to finding out he had a daughter. He wasn't sure which prospect was more terrifying.

Deciding to do something more productive with his insomnia than just staring at the ceiling, he walked to the shelf on the other side of the room and reverently pulled down a book. It was the first one he'd touched since the night before the war, having kept to periodicals earlier in the evening, and he found himself relishing the familiar weight, the feel of the leather binding, and even the smell of the parchment and ink.

'Hogwarts: A History'.

It didn't surprise him that even living among Muggles, she'd have this book in her collection.

He'd just settled in to the armchair in his room and opened the book when a small sound from the room next door drew his attention. Next door? Next door was Sabine's room. The book was closed and set aside as he drew his wand.

* * *

While there was a part of him that wanted to burst through the door, he decided stealth might be a better alternative. Standing outside Sabine's door, he controlled his breathing and listened. Yes, there was that same sound. Years spent in a castle full of children allowed him to recognize it, too. She was crying. And years overseeing a House full of _Slytherin_ children allowed him to recognize something else: she was trying to muffle the sound.

"Mr. Snape?" she queried at the end of a sniff. "Is everything alright?"

"I… forgive the intrusion, Miss Granger; I was up reading and heard what I determined to be sounds of your… distress."

Sabine looked mortified. "I'm so sorry to have disturbed you, Sir. It won't happen again."

He crossed the room and sat gingerly on the edge of her bed, unsure of his reception. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she said stubbornly, though he noted that she bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling. "It was just a stupid dream, after all."

She was tough, he'd give her that. "In my experience," he offered, "dreams are most often worse than the most terrifying reality. There is no shame in being afraid, Sabine."

"Only _babies_ have bad dreams," she protested almost bitterly. "Miss Stevens said so."

Severus held in his desire to hex 'Miss Stevens'. "I see. And Miss Stevens is…?"

"My friend Jillian's aunt. She was there the last time I spent the night at Jillian's house."

"Ah," he replied, vowing to discuss the matter with Hermione in the morning. "Well, while I hardly dare to question the wisdom and authority of Miss Stevens, I can assure you in this case she is quite wrong. Everyone is susceptible to bad dreams, even the bravest adult."

Sabine blinked up at him. "Do _you_ have nightmares?"

He decided that a statement about the majority of his life being one unending nightmare might be a bit much for one in the morning, so he kept things relatively simple. "Frequently; I had one the very night your mother saved me from Azkaban."

"But," she protested, "you're really brave! You fought in a war and everything!"

"And when I did, I saw plenty of dreadful things to give me nightmares," he countered.

He watched as she processed this bit of information. She finally sighed. "I don't think I'm going to be able to go back to sleep," she said.

Severus hesitated. "Would it… would you perhaps be more comfortable if I remained here?"

* * *

"Mister Snape? How long have you known my mum?" Sabine asked as he settled into the chair beside her bed.

Severus raised an eyebrow. "She hasn't told you?"

Sabine shook her head. "I don't think she's had time, really. She was reading the newspaper the other day at breakfast, and startled me when she dropped her tea. I thought she might be getting sick… she'd gone all white and shaky, and she had a strange look on her face. It wasn't much more than an hour later that she told me she had to go to London immediately, because an old friend of hers was in trouble."

"And when she returned, I was with her," he finished, and she nodded. "Tell me… did your mother ever tell you about where she completed her education as a child?"

"What, d'you mean Hogwarts? She answered some of my questions when I found her old book, 'Hogwarts, A History', but said she'd tell me more about it when I got older. It sounds like a marvelous place, though."

"It is… unique," he replied. "Well, a goodly number of years ago, back before the war, I was a professor there."

Sabine's eyes went wide. "You were? For how long? What did you teach? Did you know mum?"

Severus found himself chuckling at her enthusiasm. "I was, for nearly two decades. Though I don't look the part now, I am a Potions Master, so that is what I taught. Your mother was my student for the last six years of my tenure."

He decided to leave out the fact that for all six of those years, she'd been a royal pain in his arse… it wasn't until after he'd fled the school, then later returned with one of Dumbledore's memories to clear him in the eyes of the Order, that the two of them had grown close.

Sabine grinned. "What was she like, as a student?"

Severus thought about that, trying to come up with a way to sum up the force of nature that was Hermione Granger. "She was… precocious," he finally said. Sabine looked confused, so he decided to elaborate. "Let me give you an example," he said. "During her very first year, there was a particular item, the Philosopher's Stone, that had been brought to Hogwarts so that it could be protected, hidden away from someone who planned to steal it. The Headmaster asked several of the professors, myself included, to devise a sort of test, or challenge, that one would have to overcome to gain access to the Stone.

"Your mother and her two friends, at the clever age of eleven, surmised that someone in the castle was trying to breach those defenses, and took it upon themselves to stop the individual rather than bringing the matter to their elders."

"What did they do?" Sabine asked, hanging on his every word.

He smirked. "What they did best... they broke the rules, and took off after the thief."

Her brow furrowed. "But... that would mean they would have had to face each of those tests you mentioned, right?"

"Indeed."

"What was yours?"

"A logic puzzle," he replied. "Based around potions, naturally. In my experience, some of the greatest wizards of all time haven't an ounce of logic. Your mother was apparently one of the exceptions to that rule, as she was the one to solve it."

"How did it work?" Sabine asked.

"The enchantments protecting the Philosopher's Stone were set up within a series of underground chambers," he explained, thinking back to the night all those years ago when Albus had brought them together to set up the protections. "One had to get passed the first enchantment to reach the next, and so on. The logic puzzle I'd concocted was the sixth in a line of seven total enchantments.

"Once someone passed through the door of the chamber, the doorway through which they entered was blocked by a purple flame. The other entry way leading to the Philosopher's Stone, was blocked with black flame. A table with seven bottles of differing shapes sat in the middle of the room, along with a riddle.

"Each bottle contained a liquid, but the bottles were not labeled with their contents. Three were poison, two contained nettle wine, one contained a potion to safely traverse the black flame, and the last contained a potion that allowed passage back through the purple flames. The riddle, when properly worked out, revealed the contents of each bottle, and therefore which one was safe to drink to allow onward progress."

"And Mum solved it?"

"She did," Severus confirmed. "Her compatriots didn't have a logical bone in their bodies. I never told her at the time, but I was admittedly impressed with her ability to divine the correct answer."

Sabine grinned. "D'you remember how the riddle went? Could I try…" The end of her query was cut off when she yawned.

Severus raised an eyebrow. "I do recall it, yes. I'll make you a bargain: I'll tell you the riddle, and you may attempt to solve it, but you will go to sleep afterwards. Are these terms agreeable?"

Sabine nodded vigorously. "Yes, please!"

"Very well." Snape said. "Have you something for me to write with, and some paper?"

"There should be a drawing case in the drawer of my nightstand," she replied.

Pulling out the case, Severus opened it and found paper, a biro, and (much to his amusement) a full assortment of crayons. Well, at least he'd be able to easily differentiate the potions bottles he planned to sketch.

The sketch itself didn't take long, but he took his time writing down the riddle, wanting to make sure he remembered all of the particulars. Sabine waited with surprising patience as he worked.

Eventually, it was done, and he passed over the two sheets of paper as he capped the biro and returned the crayons to their appropriate places as she read the riddle:

_Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,_

_Two of us will help you, whichever you would find._

_One among us seven will let you move ahead, _

_Another will transport the drinker back instead._

_Two among our number hold only nettle wine,_

_Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line._

_Choose, unless you wish to stay here for evermore,_

_To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:_

_First, however slyly the poison tries to hide_

_You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;_

_Second, different are those who stand at either end,_

_But if you would move onwards neither is your friend;_

_Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,_

_Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;_

_Fourth the second left and the second on the right_

_Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight._

"It's this one," she said after only a moment of comparing the riddle to the picture, pointing to the smallest bottle. "The one third in from the left."

"Did your mother tell you about this?" Severus asked suspiciously.

"No," she assured him. "It's brilliant, though. I've just always loved logic puzzles."

"I find myself now questioning the effectiveness of the enchantment, if two ten-year-olds have solved it with such ease."

Sabine smirked. "Well, it's not like we're normal ten-year-olds, are we?"

Severus snorted. "No, I don't suppose you are." His expression turned stern then, though a touch of softness remained in his eyes. "Now, Miss Granger, I believe we had a bargain."

Sabine settled obediently back into her pillows with a sigh, but fidgeted.

"You're still going to stay, aren't you?"

"If you wish."

"Would you… would you mind reading to me until I fall asleep?"

He was admittedly surprised by the request, but agreed. "Do you have a preference?"

"Anything on the shelf is fine," she said after another yawn.

Scanning the shelf, he found himself lingering on a worn copy of 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard'. Without thinking, Severus took it down and caressed the cover.

Sabine, seeing what he'd picked up, smiled. "That's one of my favorites," she admitted. "I like 'The Tale of the Three Brothers' best."

Severus knew the story well… even if he hadn't read it as a child, everyone who had been in the thick of the war knew the truth of the Hallows. It was never made common knowledge, though…

"Well, if it is your favorite," he said, settling into the chair beside her bed, "then we shall read it tonight. And tomorrow night, if you wish, I will tell you about how one the Hallows came into the possession of your mother and her friends, and the mischief they got into using it to sneak around the castle."

Sabine grinned.

And so it was, opening the book in his lap to the appropriate page, that Severus Snape took his first steps into fatherhood.

* * *

Neither of them realized that Hermione had been standing in the hallway listening for almost the entirety of the exchange, a fond smile on her face.

For the first time in a decade, she was genuinely, completely happy.


End file.
